


"We Are Rabbits" (A Portal/Half-Life Universe Fanfiction)

by writentoon



Category: Half-Life, Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Animals, Children, Cities, Humans, No shipping, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Rabbits, Robots, Technology, Video & Computer Games, Volcanoes, science-fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 17:59:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4489281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writentoon/pseuds/writentoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>”It has been years since the Suppression gates’ deactivation. Now, the human population has increased and look—kids! When ex-test subject Chell tries to start anew as a police officer in a run-down, but safely hidden city from the Combine, she adopts two children found outside the city outskirts by Resistance members. Despite trying to forget Aperture after seven years patrolling the city, she cannot but help notice that her adopted children carry familiar quirks. These kids, while left alone to their own devices to explore, end up finding themselves in more trouble that anyone could ever wish to be involved in again…”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Into the Burrow"

 

**Into the Burrow 0-1**

 

_What now?_

The neverending golden sea engulfs half of Chell’s body. There’s no path, no map, nothing.

_Forward?_

She could go forward. Forward is often a good choice. It is the path that life follows anyway. And one that currently wants her to choose, especially as she hears the low mumbles of rustling and crunching of dry flora.

_Then go already!_

Off she goes. The idea of turning around never bothered to appear as she hastily paces her footsteps. Intuitively, her entire body shudders at a familiar feeling. Why is it that the idea of being pursued by something antagonizing always chases her? Is it life’s sadistic humour? Whatever, she’d rather not know. She’s already escaped a large behemoth of claustrophobic, undesirable trouble. Playing a game of philosophy wasn’t needed. All she wants right now, impulsively, is safety, shelter, and her cube. Just a break from life dammit! Wait, what about the portal gun? She still has it, doesn’t she? Then use it!

Chell makes no waste to halt and point the open end of the device at the ground in a jolt. The faint whirring sound of the device and a flash from orange to blue makes her pray that it’ll work. Did it?

Chell thrusts the charred metal cube at the predator and continues running.

_Shit-shit-shit-shit!_

Well congratulations, she discovered her iconic device won’t be of any help out in this shining land.

_Just keep going forward, just keep going forward! Run! Run! Run!_

“Hey! You shouldn’t be out here!”

_Who is that? That was a **who** , wasn’t it? Just keep it up Chell. **Run! Run! Run!**_

“You’re not from the Resistance. Get over here before you get killed!”

She pulls to the right, and spies a man waving his arm in the near distance. Grey clothes, dull garb, nothing orange, nothing blue, nothing white.

_Okay, maybe he can be trusted?_

Chell sprints, heart pounding, and flinches at the- **BOOM!**

_Am I dead?_

The bemoaning fog of grey clears as she clenches her chest. It’s fine, her heart is still there. Her hand loosens her grip, and deep, heavy breathes become consciously paced.

“Sorry about that,” His hand is currently vulnerable, asking her to give consent to help her back up. “That panther eye just happened to decide that you’d make a satisfying meal.”

She accepts his indirect ask and lets him assist her in lifting her body from its clamped, crouching pose. Body loosening, Chell’s mind begins to feel more at rest with this other human. His face, its jagged structure and the jaded, concerned eyes gives her the sense that whatever else is out here must be more dangerous than what is in there.

_Did I screw up?_

What if this world is worse than the one she left? What was that thing? Who is he? More bullets?! How dangerous is this place? No, shake it off for now. Chell pushes all worries aside, she has to turn those fears into bravery for now. She **will** get her break. She earned it.

“Here, follow me. The city is up ahead. But stay close, it’s still at least a day’s walk to get there.”

She follows him, and subconsciously locks her head in place, denying it the right to turn and see what the predator looked like. It’s okay, he said there’s a city. It’s likely safe. Life. Will be able to settle for once.

_Wow, already?_

It seemed as if time has been eaten away. Up in the sky, the large, flaring ball had already reached the halfway mark to its goal. The easiest, most logical guess would be that it’ll be night time when she’s finally there. However, as Chell cranes her neck to the side, the pitch black emotion swells. What about the things around here? No. Forget it. That isn’t important. Chell made it, she’s going to be there! A safe haven, a safe haven will be waiting for her.

“Well there it is!” The man looks upward, smile glowing with tireless pride at something amazingly enormous.

Wait, is the city in there? Chell’s face is popping with stupendous awe and surprise, bewildered by what appears to be a goliath mountain whose peak sharply struggles to grasp the sun with its jagged teeth. Hardy nature drills itself into the surface of its aged obsidian colored rock skin, and tunnels dot around the base of it, much like an artificial halo. This whole sight, this guardian, its aura only gave off an uncanny sense of peace to Chell.

The man ceases his admiration, and heads towards a cave. He pauses again, waiting for Chell to follow. “C’mon now, it’s not like the place is going to bite. In fact, this volcano has been dead for at least a thousand years.”

Weary, she doesn’t loosen her eyes’ grip on the natural structure as they inch their way into the deceased mound.

As Chell goes deeper into the volcano, a raw, pungent stench is picked up by her nose, her face curling.

What a disgusting smell!

“Oh, sorry about that,” The man’s bashful smirk and tightened shoulders complimented his embarrassed tone. “That’s the smell of some strong pheromones. We use them to keep synths at bay, if the Combine were to ever come here. It would make it harder for them to attack the place, although the aliens outside the city do a great job of that.”

Pheromones? Synths? Combine? So many dizzying words. Chell proceeds to lock them into the back of her mind, storing them for when they’ll be later relevant. Right now, she has to keep her legs working hard against the angled, rugged forceful climb of rock.

Light released by bizarre mushrooms surrounding them chews away at the steepness of the neverending murkiness. It is here where time appears to be meaningless. It feels endless, when will this stop? The only marker that convinces Chell she’s still going forward is the occasional individual in ragged clothing who’ll stand by a mushroom and pollinate it with with a sharp syringe.

_Are we there yet?_

When will this tunnel end? While her body is still slightly tense, and may permanently be this way after experiencing Aperture, it’s now that Chell decides to speak.

“D-does this t-tunnel evwe-eventually end?” Her feeble larynx stumbles, it’s been a long time since she last used it. The stuttering, the trip ups...it proves that saving her voice from squawking out at homicidal machines has leveled down its experience. Chell will just have to strengthen it again.

“Yeah it does,” He hollers out to a nearby woman. “Jeryll, how close are we to the exit? We got a newcomer!”

Jeryll raises a hand, posing it so three fingers are showing.

“Ah, well it looks like we’ll never make it.” His tone is fleshed by the appearance of a cheeky grin.

Face red and fuming, brows furrowed, Chell punches him in the trunk, and sits on the ground, pouting.

He merely laughs. “It’s okay, I was just joking. We’ll actually be there in about another seventy-five minutes.”

_It’s a sick joke though…_

“Your joke sucks.” That wasn’t funny. Believing that it’s always funny to laugh at time, neverending time, is never funny. Chell came from an underground world where time was frozen, and the predatory dystopia of robots and insane, white walls were what ruled her life. Bullshit like this can never be forgiven. Never. Once she exits this tunnel, screw the portal gun, screw the long-fall boots, screw that jumpsuit! She’ll hide them where they’ll never see the light of day again.

After resting and fuming, she gets back up and punches the man one more time, continuing the trek. Only seventy-five more minutes to go, seventy-five more minutes. She’ll get there very soon.

**Into the Burrow 0-2**

“By the way, name’s Henry.”

That’s right! The two never gave themselves a proper introduction while out in those fields. But now, with the moon hovering over a makeshift, glowing city of lights whose beams’ only directions were to reflect off the elongated, domed surface of the volcano’s skeletal innards, she could now speak, and relax, in complete safety. She offers a handshake, and replies, “Chell.”

Henry, as Chell discovered, is the city’s second to only mechanic. He manages much of the city’s lights and repairs. His vent about the stress placed on him by his tedious work, ends up being blocked out by Chell’s mind, even though it helpfully paints the city as a put-together frankenstein mess of a village rather than a true city.

“Compared to other places, this city is more like a shack honestly. Poorly run, overpopulated, disorganized...it’s a miracle how this hasn’t turned into some sort of maniacal animal of its own! Then again, everyone here is willing to work together and live safely, sort of like the rabbits that came here long before us.” Henry’s mellow grin softens his rough face with the gentle glow of light.

Chell’s eyes become wide ovals, gaping as she’s struck by something fuzzy and warm brushing against her leg. She bends over with care, and gradually stretches her hand out, fingers set in a weak, grasping shape.

_Touch it?_

It looks so calm and gentle. So soft, so soothing. Fragile maybe? Chell commits to her intended action and calmly swoops her hand down on the fuzzy. Long, mellow strokes, rowing from the top of the creature’s skull, past its funny ears, ending at the rump, before repeating the motion again. Bright eyed, Chell’s face begs at Henry.

Henry picks up the animal, and passes it to Chell. “Most rabbits here, wild or domestic, are very comfortable around humans since the kids that live on the streets love feeding them,” He spots a child wandering nearby, their clothing mismatched and tattered. “Unfortunately, I want to say there’s just as many stray kids as there are rabbits. It’s a long story on how this entire place came to be and entered this state, but the shortest answer is one of the nastier roadblocks have been out of the way for a long time, and since it added to the lack of knowing how to raise kids, it’s been like this.”

Popping and gurgling bubbles out of a black, brick-shaped radio. Henry responds to it, lifting the device to his face and answers, “Hello, Henry here,” He groans. “Really? Again? I thought that annoying gang of kids had gone to sleep already. And why the hell is their dog out roaming again! Is Deputy Angel able to take care of that dog or is he still getting over that broken knee of his that Malark shoddily repaired?” He whines and lets out an irked groan. Sighing, he looks at Chell and states, “Sorry, but some annoying group of kids who call themselves the Ratchet gang have been messing with the streetlights again and released their dog. I can guide you to the police office though, they’ll be able to provide you with some food and shelter. Who knows, maybe you can get a job there since they’re looking for a new sheriff.”

**Into the Burrow 0-3**

“Aaaaah-ouuuu-laaaa…” Chell exercises her vocal chords in front of a mirror. They resonated strong and clear, sounding nothing like their original feeble state. She then looks down at her shining badge, and adjusts it.

“C’mon Chell, time to patrol.” A woman dressed in tattered deep navy blue, with metal lapels and pins, grabs a baton and tosses one to Chell.

_Really? This again?_

Chell refuses to show it, but the monotone nature of the city, this greying area primarily centered in the middle of a flourishing environment, minus the stray housing perched on carved out ledges, is a bore. Sure, the wandering tiny youths may be a pain, but not much else happens here. The safety of nature provides the quaint, quiet silence from the dome shape of the city’s natural walls the skill to overpower any noise from the living beings who reside here. So silent, embarrassingly silent, despite this colony of life burrowed inside the bellows of a violent predator.

Maybe the fear, the paranoia these people have about this thing known as the “Combine” is what these patrols are for? After all, Chell finds herself wandering the streets in the early morning, brunch, evening, noon, dinner, and lastly night, before finally getting to rest at the strike of O’ten, and once was awoken past eleven by the frightened phonecall of a citizen who cries “SCANNER” in panic, only to discover after rushing outside in the frigid cold that it was merely a balloon.

At least it’s calm, and nothing is passively trying to kill Chell with tests.

Walking down the narrow corridor-like sidewalks, Chell’s partner chatters, “Y’know Chell, did you hear that my brother’s wife is having a child? Pretty exciting, isn’t it?”

They pass by a cardboard box housing a young boy and his toddler sister. His nose is dabbled red, and his sister buries her face against his chest. Chell bends down and pulls a blanket out of from a thick shoulder bag, tucking them in.

_These kids...._

“They can support the child, can they?” Chell’s stomach prepares for turning upside down, her heart begging that the answer is yes. She clutches onto her bag, still loaded with basic goods, such as extra blankets.

“Yeah, no worries,” The officer friendly nudges her. “I might start a family myself. How about you? I mean, you do have that mechanic looking at ya, huh?”

“No Bailey,” Her eyes roll, sighing. “He and I are only friends. Besides, I...can’t have kids.” Chell’s mind flings her back to a memory of long ago as she looks down a dark alleyway, releasing the motion of the upside down flip her stomach held onto. She swears she sees something terribly shiny and bloodshot red.

_“Are you still theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere…….”_

Quickly, her world is flooded with the splash of white. The mild, familiar scent wafting back to her. Metal, aged coffee, chemicals. Cheery, somehow jeering music laughing from a sleek radio. Echoed booming from a voice.

**“Hello, and welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. Now, before we can begin any testing, we require your full consent to ensure we cannot be sued for any liabilities. Please pick up the clipboard and begin signing your life away.”**

She pressed her thumb down on the head of the pen, and begins signing the required paperwork. Biting lip, wrinkled nose, it’s not like she had a choice. She’s been kept here for a long time, forced to wait, while white, asylum white, machinery swept the field, reorganized it, arranged it, all while she lived inside a hamster cage. She’s been forced to test before, but never had she needed to sign paperwork for testing. She remembered hearing rumours about what kinds of tests they give you when handed these papers. Normally, it was possible to decline, but once again, this wasn’t the Aperture she and her father knew. She finished, and put the pen down.

**“Thank you for providing valuable information to Aperture Science. Before you’re capable of testing the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, we require you to undergo reproductive surgery as past results have shown that those who were still fertile died from cancerous illness after being exposed to manipulated quantum mechanics and moon dust. Please stay calm, opiates are now being administered.”**

The world’s white walls faded, and she returned to the world with mishap grey buildings and stray kids, her baton’s taser flickering blue and ready to bite as she stares into the alley’s abyssal darkness.

“Chell? Are your flashbacks bothering you again?” Bailey walks up to Chell’s side, looking at her, cooing. She flinches, preparing for impact as Chell thrusts her baton at her. Nothing happens, and Bailey checks her own condition.

Chell ceases her motion and deactivates the baton, returning it to its holster on her belt. “Sorry. Thought you were something else for a moment, and I-”

_Don’t mention the Portal Device!_

“Nevermind. I’m back to reality, that’s what matters,” Chell checks the time. “So, when does this patrol end?”


	2. The Lost Kits

**The Lost Kits 1-1**

“Henry, ya wanna come?” Cries out this man. Donning padded dull clothing, he reloads a pistol’s clip, phone pinned between his shoulder and ear, waiting for an answer.

“Not today. I already got enough of a handful--HEY YOU PUT THAT DOWN!” Cluttering crashes and ringing of tin seeps out the phone’s opposing end. A few seconds of momentary silence, then muffling of the speaker until he hears Henry sigh. “Sorry, some annoying brat from one of the child street gangs tried to steal my toolbox. Just tell our team I won’t be able to meet up with the rest of the Resistance today.”

Oh well. The team will just have to suck it up and realize they’ll be one member short today. The man grabs his bearings and exits his rucksack home leaning over the edge of a cliff, braced by timber bars recycled from a ruined building, and he trudges down the sculpted rock path, his neck locked in place to refuse access to peering over the side.

Reaching the ground, a stray kid rushes up to him, taps while blaring, “TAG!” The child flees, and the man shakes his head.

“Kids...what are they anyways?” His chuckle amuses himself, and he curiously peeps at his reflection in a calm, cold lake where a woman tended a tiny potato crop nearby while a generator pump whirrs, its mechanics working efficiently to contain the cleanliness of the pool. A gangly tabby cat frightens several blackbirds away from their master’s food source.

_We’re grateful for this place, despite its poverty._

This place, it’s tattered, it’s beaten, it’s poor as shit, but it’s the home of many, including this man. Here, it was possible to flourish. The man, while a native of this city himself, has heard the terrors that come from the sections of the world that are deep in the Combine’s reach.

_The poor saps, they’ll never get to experience a luxury like here._

If his face was a mask, then the concealed expression behind it would’ve charred it with pride. Pride for this place. Pride to be alive. Pride to be hidden safely and free from control. If this place were to ever be taken from him, he’d collapse from being burnt by the one thing that makes him glow so brightly.

The man meets up with seven other folks, all dressed in armored dull garb, equipped with the metallic firepower of mankind. A woman stands up in front of the party, preaching out her precautions.

“So, is everyone ready? Remember, not only will it be a long trip, but we’ll have to stay together with another team of members being lead by no other than Freeman. The area we’ll be going to is abandoned, so it’s already a major hazard. It’s been deactivated for six years, but for safety, do not attempt to activate anything.”

**So...what is this place?**

The man’s group arrives at a beaten wood shed in a knee-high shining sea of golden wheat. His heart races, jumping with each second spent staring at the three of Resistance’s famous members. That man with the black and white metropolice uniform, that’s Barney! A-and the woman with pulled back hair, Black Mesa graphic shirt and brown leather jacket, that’s Alyx. Oh my, this is unbelievable! The man wearing black framed glasses and padded inside the heavy duty armored orange suit was no other than--

“Gordon, what’s your plan?” Asks the leader of the man’s team.

The man, so giddy, just couldn’t believe that his leader is talking to these three!

_Gotta do my best to impress them._

Look good, act natural, do your best. The anticipation begins to rattle his leg, irrational shaking coming from the tiny thumping of his foot. The rattling speed enhances when Alyx pries open the door with a bizarre, homemade tool.

**The Lost Kits 1-2**

This is incredible! Him, traveling this place with them! Oh-my-oh-my-oh-my! Eeeeee! His toes feel like springing out of his shoes. Automatically, his glow of pride grew brighter than ever.

_So what should I do?_

This man’s eyes trailed everywhere, gradually leading him away from the party. He releases the switch on his flashlight, and trails into an area engulfed in rubble and white, broken walls.

Thick vines chew away at locked doors, prying the blockage, revealing more hidden secrets. Small birds fluttered across the goliath chambers, worn lettering carefully being scraped off by time and dominating nature. Anything white is now stained with rotten greys and browns.

_This is amazing! All of this, down here?_

What a jaw-dropping, spelunking wonder! He goes deeper into the mechanical temple ruins, ambitiously curious about what else could be found. He extends a hand out to grapple onto a bulbous root pushing its way out of the cracked tiles, pulling out a clean machete to break the root into a freed bit before sacking it into his bag.

“Maybe this root might provide some data about this place.” He wonders, then reaches a stretch of  a very wide, bellowing room.

Machinery is scattered everywhere, lights all shut off, everything quiet, sections presumably collapsing. Giant capsules containing fluids whose opaque surface hid the details of strange, biological shapes out of sight. To the right of him is a cracked plasma screen, with a monitor lacking several switches, knobs, and buttons underneath.

Wandering across the floor of this room, the man squeaks in surprise, stumbling over the brethren of the decapitated root, flailing his arms.

_Shit! Did I touch something?_

This man is sure that he felt something be brushed underneath his hand-

“Cave Johnson here, and welcome to the Aperture Revival Project! Some of the boys here figured that we should keep a backup plan ready for if anyone, human or machine, weren’t available to keep this place up and running. Now, I call this a bunch of BS, for this entire facility has been able to run on all sorts of sources for years. Yet the lab boys tell me it may be good to at least provide the facility the grease it needs for recycling machinery into a whole bunch of  tater-tot kids so that way they can be raised to continue caring for this place. Supposedly converting digital data into organic material causes the brain to gain incredibly fast processing power and a fast learning curve. Almost completed this project, but whatever, they’re fired now...” The voice rambles.

_What is this?_

The man gets up, and goes to satisfy his hungry curiosity.

“You know, when they were pitching this project, we were sued for at least fifteen laws regarding child labor. Well screw them I say! Even though this project wasn’t finished, and I may not like the idea of grubby hands touching what we’ve worked so hard on, denying the work of newer generations to benefit the future is just plain stupid.”

The man listens to this big, echoing voice as he fondles the controls. Knowledge told him that he should follow the precautions of his leader and not touch anything, but it was too late for that anyway.

“It’s not like anyone will know…” He mumbles to himself, flipping colorful switches, tinkering with the monitor.

Machinery behind him bawled with rusty clicking, painful screeches heard from the neglect of repair. Tubes weaving through the facility begin to vacuum multiple areas, loose robotic devices becoming engulfed, and wiring snaking in and out of rugged wall panels jitters with malfunctioning electrical shocks, all of which appears onscreen from rusted, spying cameras.

One section of the screen flashes in digital text as it asks, “ **[REVIVAL PROJECT HAS DETECTED SEVERAL TRACES OF COMPATIBLE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. EXTRACT DATA FOR BIOLOGICAL RECYCLING? ‘Y/N’]** ”

_Ah why the hell not?_

“ **[‘Y’ HAS BEEN INPUTTED. NOW EXTRACTING DATA...PLEASE WAIT FOR A MOMENT]** ”

He watches as the screen flickers the recorded names of devices.

“ **[EXTRACTION OF ID CORE DATA COMPLETE. NOW PROCESSING DATA FROM THE GENETIC LIFEFORM AND DISK OPERATING SYSTEM]** ”

“Huh, wonder what those are. Probably something useless now since this whole place is technically dead.” The man shrugs, a lackadaisical attitude overriding his logic.

**The Lost Kits 1-3**

“Can’t believe this entire place used to be Aperture. What happened to it anyway?” Barney’s mouth went agape at the view of the damage, carefully stepping over any ruined floor panels and vegetation while following the other members.

“Poisonous gas. That’s what happened according to my great-grandfather.” Sternly grunts a woman as the mumbles and bumbling of infantile giggles bubble from her back. She sways with extra weight, back and forth, her body opposing the gravity pressed on her by the living package.

“Joell, did you and Hank have to bring your child?” Groaned a member.

A man pops behind Joell, facial surface morphed into a snarl, and barks, “What? Do you expect us to entrust our daughter to some stranger back in that city?”

Joell chimes in. “We’ve come from a place where it’s still impossible to raise kids because of all the warfare going on over there. You’d do the same.”

Alyx opens her mouth, but obtains a glare from the volcanic city Resistance leader and sharp stern words.

“Don’t worry about their choices. If they choose to be that way well,” She pauses, her voice then quiets, preventing the eavesdropping from the crude parents. “The volcano won’t protect them. The volcano only protects those who aren’t weak to the city.”

“Okay?” Alyx’s puzzled grimace can’t figure out what this woman meant. Then again, that entire place is just as paranoid as a colony of rabbits.

They all continue to travel onwards, scouring the exhausted remnants of Aperture.

“ **[REVIVAL PROJECT HAS DETECTED SEVERAL TRACES OF COMPATIBLE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. EXTRACT DATA FOR BIOLOGICAL RECYCLING? ‘Y/N’]** ” Open ventilation shafts echoed with the invisible vibrations of sound shimmying through, causing the Resistance to halt.

“The hell is that?” Barney couldn’t have said it any better.

The city Resistance leader counts off the heads of her troupe. One...two...three...seven...nine..t- “Someone wandered off,” She murmurs, teeth gritting. “Even after that entire warning I gave about this place,” She grabs Barney’s shoulder. “I want you to come find the wanderer with me.”

**The Lost Kits 1-4**

“David! David where are you?!” The Resistance leader’s squawking renders useless amongst the echoes.

“ **[‘Y’ HAS BEEN INPUTTED. NOW EXTRACTING DATA...PLEASE WAIT FOR A MOMENT]** ”

Whirrs and clicks of activated machinery chirp loudly, and the metal shells’ violent tumbling tampers their surface against the winding tubes. She hisses, now seething with short-fused irritance. “I swear that bastard! What the hell is he doing?”

Barney’s eyes drift off from the starting emotional fires of the women, catching glimpse of what seems to be a disastrous punch-out hole of the ceiling. Debris had dribbled through the vortex with time, and curiously, something else appeared to be up there. The lustful curiosity of the secrets kept in this aged area even hooks his attention, and, as if caught in a hypnotic daze, he begins clambering to the top with the assistance of fallen architecture. Stretching out an arm, he reaches the top and successfully lands on the flooring.

He reaps the reward of his curiosity, which lays sitting amongst a pigsty; Papers on the floor, shards of a mug, a cracked monitor, torn out keys with the keyboard swinging from the table’s edge as a leg stands there, crooked. Barney proceeds to approach the table and steals the blue, tube-wrapped loot, peeping at its contents for a moment. “Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operation system. This was what they were working on last, weren’t they?”

“ **[RETRIEVAL OF DATA COMPLETE. PODS SHALL BE RELEASED IN 3...2...1…]** ”

Crying is heard.

“Hey, look what I found!” David, cheeky smile, glowing bright eyes, confidence in his voice, he shamelessly walks into the room where his leader stands, with infants awkwardly placed in his bag, their heads poking out for air. It didn’t take long for his shirt collar to be hauled up to his face.

“You idiot! What have you done?” She lashes, ready to toss him off the edge of whatever abyssal artificial cliff she might find.

“I found a couple of really cute kids, that’s what I found.” David’s chuckles aren’t even filled with slight nervousness.

The amount of stress resulting from this bullshit is enough for to last an entire month for her.

**The Lost Kits 1-5**

Members, disgruntled and cross, argue about what should they do about David’s discovery.

“Well what are we supposed to do?” Whines a member.

“I say we just leave them for the panther eyes.” Replies their friend.

“What good can come out of all this?” Groans a man.

“Great. Now we’ll never learn more about the Borealis’ secrets if we have these brats being lugged around.” Hisses the Resistance leader.

“Oh, so you’re complaining about these kids? What about the one that the couple brought?” Barks another member.

“How about you shut up!” Hank obviously isn’t fond of the remark.

David never bothers to say anything during the rampant squabbling, but instead follows everyone in complete silence, still bearing his grin. Unfortunately, everyone else isn’t as tolerant.

“Hey, knock it off everyone!” Alyx’s head feels like it should be ringing right now. The situation is immaturely ridiculous. “Look, maybe it’s best we just head up to the surface right now if having these kids around is only making it worse.”

“Oh, great idea! Then what about the kids? What are we supposed to do with them AFTER we get back up there?” The chastising tone from one of her team's own members didn’t help.

“Isn’t there an orphanage back at the volcano? Maybe they can be left there?” Alyx tries to calmly resolve the problem. Either way, it’s been decided that it’s better to return.

_They’re going to grow up just fine in the Volcano._

David’s bag is beginning to feel heavy after many long hauling hours. The group’s bodies grazes through the sea of dry wheat, leaving dense trailing behind. Shoulders tired, he switches the position of the baggage, careful not to harm the infants he found from the Aperture Revival Project. Surrounding members scowl at him as he peers down to admire the babies.

_Just look at them, adorable! Why all the hate?_

He doesn’t understand. There’s already more than enough children populating the city, why save room for two extra mouths? He simply shrugs this notion off, and inspects the kids, whose bodies are wrapped in dry towels that contains lettering labeling their biological sex and official name. One healthy girl named Caroline, and a boy name Adam who’s missing an arm.

_The Volcano doesn’t protect the weak…_

“Heh, he’ll do fine…” He tries to reassure himself and allow bright, sunny arrogance to blind him from reality. Since when was the last time he saw a child with a physical problem wandering the streets? David certainly couldn’t start counting to one on his left hand to mark how many living children there were in the city who were born with health issues. Nor did he pick up a scream until he lands with a harsh thump onto the ground.

“EVERYONE KEEP MOVING!” Hollers the city Resistance leader.

“What about them? That thing is--”

“JUST GO! Head to the Volcano,” She whips out a shotgun and begins to rocket scattering metal pellets at the predator, falling onto the ground as it lashes her.

_Oh no. Gotta run! Gotta head back there!_

He, like the remaining members who successfully fled the attack, while frantically rushing back to the volcano, never allowed the thoughts of assisting the unlucky to appear in his head. David doesn’t dare look behind, but still couldn’t ignore the yells and frightened screams of the damaged Resistance.

“Hank! Hank!” Distressful cries wails from his partners Joell, whose child’s panicking sounds off like an alarm. It didn’t take long for David to flinch at the noise which signals Joell’s end, and triggers louder, rising sounds from the fight.

_The Sea of Wheat is never forgiving…_

_The Lost Kits 1-6_

“Wait Margaret, you mean there’s no more room in the Cottage for two extra babies?” David’s voice is swollen by concern. He’s holding his bag closely in front of an elderly woman’s face, who stares down at him, distressed and tired by the whining begging he now performs. “Just please take them? They won’t cause too much distress, I’m sure of it.”

Margaret’s glare shifts onto Adam and she pulls him out with two hands. “This one doesn’t have an arm. The Volcano doesn’t protect the weak,” She hands him back to the Resistance member. “I raised a farm, retired, and now I raise children. 50 of them. Five are infants. But I do not have time to raise sick baby, or patience. And I do not have time to raise extra healthy child and extra sick child. Only fifty children and Ringo.”

“Ringo?”

“Ringo is last rabbit from farm. Come from line of blue ribbon winning rabbits that lasted for 200 years. Is only family pride and joy. Smarter than idiot human like you.” She backs into the house and slowly begins to close the door. “Now goodbye.”

“Waitwaitwait-” David’s words climaxed with anxious panicking as the door painfully closes on his plea. He groans as he hears it tightly shut. “Fine…” He sighs. “Stupid woman and her stupid rabbit,” He grumbles, turning away from the Cottage. “Maybe I could just leave them at the police station like they used to in America before the Combine. It’s not like anyone’s going to say ‘no’ to that.”

_Officer, I have something to give you…_

David double checks the area. Left is clear, right is clear. Next, he gently jabs his fingers in-between the walls of a wicker basket and the blanket covering the warm bodies of the helpless children, tucking them in. He pulls out a notepad, and writes in big, chicken-scratch writing, “WE’RE HOMELESS!”

He tapes it onto the handle and pulls himself up from a crouch, staring down at the package sitting on the station’s cracked cement doorstep. With the soft churning of powerful generators, the city lights begin powering up as the moon peeps downward at the tired volcanic city.

_Well, bye okay?_

David leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gordon and his friends make a brief appearance in this! Although Chell (and later on, other "certain" Aperture Science member) are the main focus of the fanfiction, members of the Half-Life series' cast will have more appearances in the fic.
> 
> I also hope that I've been doing a decent job with the portrayal of each character (that's not some randomly named NPC haha^^"). Same goes for some of the themes presented in the fic so far; I get a bit nervous about a few of them, since how characters associated with those themes are perceived through the eyes of some of the Volcano's locals, who are a bit cynical and closed-minded when it comes to things like health, outsiders, etc. They do allow outsiders, whether they're in good health or not, in, it's just that most of them are very jaded about it until they find out what the outsider can provide.
> 
> Definitely let me know what I can do to improve this fanfiction and anything presented in it! I haven't written anything past three chapters, and there's still much to the plot that's going to be written :)


	3. A Mother Indeed

**A Mother Indeed 2-1**

“Oh Cheeeeell, would you have a look at this?” Bailey can’t help but show Chell the wicker basket. “Don’t you think this is something surprising or what?”

_Uh...define surprising?_

She isn’t sure what to exactly think of the surprise. Babies in a basket? This seemed too much like a story cliche to be believed as real.

“C’mon, have a gander at them!” Her partner pushes the basket into Chell’s hands, her smile metaphorically performing a persuasive nudge.

Chell slightly peels over the basket’s warm covers, meeting the sleeping faces of two feeble youths. A charm from them compels her to tilt her head to the side in awe, face softened by gentle emotions. “They’re cute.”

Bailey’s smile quickly shifts its intentions into a warning for a new action. “Y’know how you can’t have kids of your own?”

“Yes?” Nervously, Chell quickly catches onto her partner’s change of ideas.

Bailey releases her grip on the basket, causing its weight to be delivered to Chell, who gets surprised by the sudden heave her body feels from the gravity pulling it down. She pulls out a drawer, revealing multiple blank certificates and legal forms, and yanks out her pen to initiate writing. “I now promote you to…”

“Bailey, you got to be ki-”

Bailey attaches a piece of scotch tape onto the document, and slaps it onto Chell’s forehead. “MOTHERHOOD!”

_Bailey!_

“Bailey, this has to be a joke?” She pulls the paper out of her face. Chell’s voice is sharply clear, but unsure of what to think of it. The baffling, famous sentence used to declare parenthood has just now been rammed into Chell’s face, both metaphorically and literally, like a steam train crashing into an impossibly thick concrete slab and successfully breaking through.

Bailey’s giddy laughs of excitement says otherwise. She fondly slaps Chell on the back. “Oh you!”

“Bailey I don’t know how to take care of kids.” There’s no directions nor an instruction manual to direct Chell the proper way to raise a tiny human, let alone two.

“You’ll just have to pick it up on the go then, much like everyone else here,” Bailey’s voice then breaks into a whisper. “Although admittedly, most do a really crappy job at it since people here prefer the fun part and not the parenthood that comes after it.”

Chell rolls her eyes tirelessly, unimpressed by the possibility she’ll have little to no help on caring for the two.

_I guess I start now?_

Chell sets up a small area in her apartment for the children as a temporary crib. A worn down couch is pressed up against the wall, touching a corner on the right, and a wooden plank tucked to the left, blocking any potential spots where they may accidentally roll off. She rushes to her bedroom, yanking two layers of covers off of it, and returns to the makeshift crib to pad its bottom. Finished, she takes the infants out of the basket and places them in their new spot.

Quickly, she notices the labels on the blankets they were wrapped in, and takes care to read each before placing them in the tattered laundry basket. “So the girl,” She looks at her. “Is named Caroline. And the boy is Adam,” Her eyes slightly widen with surprise. “No right arm?” Another quirk captures her eyes, causing them to reach maximum size. The quirk appears as black, numbered barcodes on their tiny left wrists. “Now that’s odd...”

**A Mother Indeed 2-2**

_What now?_

Chell feels somebody sitting cross-legged on the foot of her bed.

“Mom.”

Tired, Chell ignores them.

“Mom.”

She moans, hiding her face within the pillow.

“Mom,” They begin bouncing on the bed, the crooked creaking seeping out from the springs of the mattress. “Mom-mom-mom-mom-mom-mom-”

She groans. “What is it this time Adam?”

The small boy tosses himself face first onto the mattress, mimicking Chell in a goofy fashion. “I lost my right arm.”

“Adam, you were never born with a right arm. Now let mommy sleep for five more-”

“No I lost my robo-arm.” He corrected, his words muffled.

Chell springs up, gawking. “YOU DID WHAT?!”

_Why Adam!_

Hair mottled from bedhead, lazily clothed, Chell lumbers out of bed with her adopted son clinging onto her leg like a marsupial with only three appendages and a limping blue plaid shirt sleeve. His weight slows her down, as irritated moans and mutters come from her impossible to hear complaints as she searches for his prosthetic. She pushes and pulls multiple trinkets, accessories, and clothing out of the way, along with lifting furniture and snooping through closets and drawers. She pauses as she feels her leg convert into pins and needles, and sluggishly mumbles, “Adam, could you please stop hanging onto my leg. You’re not 3 anymore.”

“Could you pick me up mom?” He chirps.

“No.” Chell refuses.

“Why mom?” Adam chimes.

“Mom is tired. Where’s your sister?” She definitely isn’t in the mood to bother with starting the daily questioning her son always does when she refuses to carry him on her shoulders first thing in the morning. In fact, he always tries to question her in the morning if she denies him the chance to physically cling onto her. She hears mason jars clinking against each other in an open fridge door.

_Okay, who’s trying to get their sweet fix BEFORE their breakfast?_

“Caroline...are you trying to steal the last piece of that forest cake I baked earlier this month?”

_Haha, busted._

Chell closes the fridge door, looming over the brunette haired girl. “No cake,” She opens the fridge to obtain milk, then the wall cabinets, pulling out a bowl, a spoon, and a box of cereal. “Here’s your breakfast.” Chell wanders off, proceeding to look for the arm.

“Aren’t you going to fill it for me first?” Caroline’s voice is confused, and slightly tinged with irritation.

“Not now, you’ll just have to figure it out yourself. Your brother lost his arm.”

“Well he doesn’t deserve one.” Caroline murmurs while managing her breakfast.

“Caroline!” Barks Chell.

“Fine,” Caroline frowns at her brother as she stares down at him from the tall stool. “Sorry moron.”

Adam retaliates by giving her an immature face, squinting his eyes and poking out his tongue. “Go eat your cake you fatty-fat-fatty walrus!”

_This is stupid._

“Can you both please stop insulting each other for one moment?” Chell doesn’t wish to put up with their rude, harsh insults that only result in frustrating messes today.

_Thank god it’s the weekend._

She pauses her current action, and looks at the two as Adam is in the midst of climbing onto a chair and utilizing it to take food out of the kitchen cupboards sitting above the stove with boiling water. “Adam no!” She rushes over to grab him and places him on the seat adjacent from Caroline, and turns off the heating water. She sighs. “Okay, how about you two get yourselves cleaned up while I try to find a certain somebody’s prosthetic.”

Adam cowers, chuckling nervously.

Caroline steps down and steps up on a small stepping stool to place her bowl in the sink, rinsing it. She then gets down, and with a smirk, chimes, “Done,” Caroline runs off to her room, yelling, “Let’s see who’s faster slowpoke!”

Adam automatically hops out of his seat and sprints past Caroline, pushing her in the hallway. His initiated push engages a minor fight between the two kids that Chell is ready to break up, but it suddenly fades as they reach their own rooms.

_What are kids?_

“Now I’m starting to wonder if I was ever this much of a pain to my dad,” Chell mutters to herself. She shifts the position of a cracked television and finds--“ADAM! DID YOU LIE TO ME BECAUSE YOU THOUGHT IT WOULD BE FUNNY TO MAKE ME WAKE UP AND PANIC WHILE YOUR ARM WAS HIDDEN BEHIND THE TELEVISION BECAUSE YOU BROKE IT AGAIN?!”

He feebly creates a crack between his room’s doorway and its door, large enough for him to poke his head through. “N-n-no.”

Chell scowls at him as if he was a puppy who just soiled in the wrong part of the house.

“I-I mean, uh…”

_He is such a horrible liar…_

Chell sighs, and places the artificial arm onto the table, its gears slightly murmur as gravity loosely nudges its mechanical joints, and picks up the phone. The phone rings for a moment, then stops with Henry responding, and Chell soon answers it. “Henry, I’d like to make an appointment.”

Adam creeps back into his room, like a dog tucking their tail between their legs.

“Yes, Adam broke his arm again,” She listens, nodding. “Hm...do you think you could pencil us in for next Friday? Okay, good. Thanks Henry.”

_Are kids always this much trouble at this age?_

Chell lies on the couch and pressing her head against her arm, takes the chance to get a few more minutes of rest. Her body curls up, and immediately falls asleep, forgetting that her kids will be very active at this time of day.

**A Mother Indeed 2-3**

Upon waking, she’s immediately greeted by the shock factor left by the two youths. Two chairs and a blanket are merged together to form a tiny fort, food sits in a scattered manner on the kitchen table with several broken ceramic dishes and spilled silverware, and a long white trail of toilet paper weaves across the entirety of the apartment while the television is currently running an old VHS. She ejects the video from the television, and checks the time on the clock.

“12:30”

She follows the unraveled fragile trail, passes into the hallway where the children’s bedrooms are. Chell flinches, her eyes squeezing together. Lifting her foot, she discovers a bright red miniature brick.

_I thought I told Caroline to put those legos away yesterday._

She places the lego on a nearby stand, venturing onward until she hears tiny, tiny growls.

“Grrrr…”

Chell pauses.

“GrrrRRRrrrrrrrrrRRRrrrrrrrrr….”

She hears the sound being mimicked, the noise amplified by two beings repeating the same noise at once.

“ATTACK!” Howls a childish female voice as Chell’s legs are pounced on by Caroline and Adam, causing her to collapse.

“Waayaaaah!” She yelps in surprise, falling on top of several more scattered legos, flinching.

The children clamber on top of her, grinning with their faces smeared with toothpaste. The two continue to make ridiculous monster faces and attempt mimicry at bizarre growls and sounds, giggling as they fail to retain serious looks.

Chell lies there with a back slightly numb from the collision with legos, stunned, then releases a smirk as she molds her hands into talons and begins to do the same to them, creating ridiculous monster noises and faces, followed by wrapping the two into her arms and rolling around.

The kids get off of her and flees, with Chell chasing them into the bathroom.

“The biiig scary monster is coming to get you-” The bathroom door is slammed in front of Chell’s face, and she catches the faint sound of Adam’s giggles and the door locking, as he helps Caroline deny entrance.

“What’s the password?” Asks Caroline.

“How would I know?” Chell merely chuckles as she hides to the side of the doorway, quickly grabbing a pillow that somehow lost its way from its cozy home.

“It’s not something like A-B-C-C-C-A.” Giggles Adam.

Chell doesn’t answer. Instead, there’s a momentary pause of five minutes.

“Mooooom, you’re still there?”

“Mom?”

Her children’s patience is waning. Chell hears a slight click come from the lock, followed by the bathroom door’s rickety creaking. Chell peeps from her hiding spot, then retracts when she spots her kids curiously poking through. As Caroline and Adam creep out quietly from hiding, Chell uses this chance to surprise them back by bopping them with her pillow.

_Gotcha!_

With a heavy thud, Caroline lands back first onto the carpeted floor, hammering her head harshly against its underlying hard wood structure. Hiccuping, she begins to cry in pain, frightening Chell.

“Ohmygosh Caroline!” Chell lifts Caroline up and hugs her, patting her head in hopes to make the pain magically go away. “Are you okay? I didn’t hit you too hard did I?”

_I’m so sorry I didn’t mean it I must be a bad parent!_

No. Chell is doing her best. She pulls out a bag of ice and tells Caroline to hold it on her head. “This should help it go away,” Chell then takes out a blanket and wraps her in it as Caroline lies on the couch, and later places legos, crayons, and paper nearby for when Caroline’s head ceases to hurt.

_Please tell me I’m doing this right._

Luckily, an hour after Caroline’s unfortunate impact, she recovers, and gets off the couch to begin playing with her legos and crayons, physically converting ideas into reality.

Chell replaces the running VHS in the TV with a different one for Adam, who exits his bedroom dragging a pillow in his hand, and clutching a satin soft bear, by its round ear, in his mouth, as he comes closer to the TV set. He drops the pillow onto the ground, gently takes the bear out of his mouth, and props it against the pillow before running off to get his blanket. He returns with the blanket slung across his shoulders like a winter scarf, right when the movie starts, and sits down, unwrapping the blanket before finally curling up with his comforts.

“Mom!” Caroline eagerly taps Chell, causing Chell to shift her attention towards her daughter.

Caroline is holding up a drawing that portrays her rendition of a self-portrait. It features four stick figures; A crude figure of a woman wearing orange, another crude figure of a boy lacking an arm and wearing blue, and a third figure of a girl wearing yellow. The figure of the girl is holding hands with a very tall figure of what appears to be a man wearing brown.

Chell’s face perks up in awe, adoring the image. “You did a good job, is that supposed to be us?” Chell watches as Caroline nods in agreement, then curiously points at the tall figure. “Who’s that? Is he your imaginary friend you like to play with when I’m out on patrol?”

Caroline shakes her head in disagreement, correcting, “No mom! He’s real. He helps me make really cool stuff.”

Chell rubs Caroline’s head. “That’s cute. Say, you never told me what his name was, didn’t you?”

Caroline stares down at the drawing, then back at Chell, mouth squinting with her eyes’ amber stare, giving Chell a look that foretells that this is a secret that Caroline keeps to herself well, but is now considering to share it with her mother. She releases her secret. “His name is Mister Johnson, but don’t tell anyone. He doesn’t want his ideas stolen by his rival.”

Chell’s face feels like it should be suddenly flattened. An old memory resonates in her head, mental bells ringing loudly as the familiarity of the name floods back to her. Something dealing with a certain homicidal computer trapped inside a potato as she and the then “conscious” vegetable traveled across broken sections of that endless cage, listening to the recordings of a voice...

_No. No, this-this is a child saying something silly._

“Mom?”

Chell snaps her attention to the chirp for attention from Adam as he stares at the very top of the wall cupboards while lying on the ground with a broken chair sitting three feet away on its side, grasping his knee as red fluid dribbles across the leg’s sides. “ADAM!” She panics, and picks him up. He wraps his only arm around her neck, strongly clinging onto her as she examines the mess.

“It bloody hurts mom…and I want my other bear with me.” He whimpers, eyes dribbling with tears.

I can’t even keep my eyes off these two for a millisecond. How am I still their mother? Wait-

“Did you say ‘bloody’ again?” Chell’s mind snags onto something else that sounded familiar, something her mind ignored until Caroline’s imaginary friend triggered a memory, but pushes it away, disregarding Adam’s quirk reminding her of someone else.

_Oh don’t be silly, he’s been mimicking those VHS movies again. Better cut down the TV watching._

Caroline has her imaginary friend, Adam has the habit of undergoing an accent at random. Kids, as Chell observed, are weird. As in sometimes weirder than insane robots. It’s hard to believe that she was once a kid herself.

Chell understands that kids can pick up very fast on what people do and say; Especially her own two children, which is why she refuses to allow anyone to curse within her home. The last time she accidentally allowed it to happen, Caroline hasn’t ceased to call Adam a moron. Not essentially a curse word, but still rude, and has remained as Caroline’s favorite word.

The enigma with Adam’s case of verbal usage, however, is that none of the books nor videos in their small family stash ever contained characters with highly authentic accents, something that Adam seemed to excel at mimicking.

Which reminds Chell that that one day she’ll have to venture out to a secret area where underground markets are held underneath the Combine’s nose. It’s the only way she could obtain items and materials like fabric, cooking utensils, and movies; All of which are scarce within the volcano’s perimeters, unless you’re willing to borrow or steal from a local.

The odd quirks of her children causes her to go onto another curious tangent; That the bizarre idea, reincarnation, is real, and children remember who they were before their current lives. Chell passes this as stupid. After all, if it was real, it could only happen to humans; The two Chell had in mind are nothing but metal shells and wires. Besides, children on the street have said stranger things than an adult could vividly imagine.

“I want my bears mommy…” He feebly demands again.

Chell sits him down on the floor, and tediously wraps his wound in a strip of gauze bandage, patching up the opening. “I’ll give you your other bear once I see you’re not bleeding, and you’re taking your nap. Okay?”

He nods, and Chell finishes patching the wound. Adam crawls back to his original spot, and, now drowsy from a long, rowdy morning and noon, he begins his nap.

Sighing to release stress, Chell gives him the bear. Next, she checks to see what Caroline been doing to occupy herself.

_Okay good._

Least Caroline hasn’t added another helping of trouble to Chell’s stress. Instead, when Chell checks Caroline’s room, she spots her taping another drawing to the window plastered with the crayon covered tree slices. The room’s tidiness, while incredibly organized, is disrupted and distracted by the collection of pieced together calamity of colorful plastic brick mazes, which runs their courses across the entire perimeter of the room.

Caroline scuttles over to a shelf, and stretches her hand into a glass cage, fishing around for a small, brown moving blob. She succeeds in catching them, and the creature lets loose a couple of tiny squeaks as she places them into one of her creations, watching the brown creature weave across the maze’s obstacles. She merely watches them, as if in a trance.

“Caroline, remember to put that mouse away when you’re done playing with it. I do not want to find another one of your pets digging through the cupboards again.” Reminds Chell.

“Okay mom.”

_Thank god that the two are not so active at night._

Rain pours down on the window as Chell sleeps after the long day. The sound of thunder booms several miles away, and lightning flashes above the mouth of the volcano, casting deep shadows amongst the city that lies in its corpse. Chell opens her eyes to the disturbance of two small bodies huddling against her.

“C-c-can’t s-sleep alone. T-t-too scary.” Whimpers Caroline as she hides underneath the covers.

Adam, with his eyes enlarged with fear, nods in agreement.

Chell sighs, too tired to say anything, and returns to her sleep, accepting the presence of the children sharing the bed with her. Ten minutes later, Adam begins to bother her with a complaint.

“Mom I’m too scared to go to the bathroom alone.” He cries.

_Awww, you GOT to be kidding me!_

Chell sits outside the bathroom, and waits for Adam to be finished, only to hear Caroline cry about the weather again. She feels stressed enough to nearly pull out her portal gun from its secret spot and use it to warp the kids to someone else for the night. Just one more hour of sleep is all she wants right now from the stressful day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of what I'd like to say is the same as what I've written on the past chapters' notes. There's still a few things I'm very "eh" about, since when I wrote this chapter back in winter I didn't take as much time to research some stuff, but I guess it's still a good read since the fanfiction itself has had a steady following on tumblr.
> 
> Critique, kudos, etc. are always welcome too!


	4. Kids At Play

**Kids at Play 3-1**

“Now I’ll be going to work now, you two stay safe while I’m gone okay?” Chell bends down, talking to the two at eye level as she adjusts her uniform’s hat. She hands them each a small brown bag.

Curious, Caroline opens her package, and her entire face scrunches with disgust. “Moooom!”

Chell’s sharp glare stares Caroline down. “Caroline, that is all you’ll get for today as your lunch and afternoon snack when I’m gone. Same goes for Adam.” Her radio buzzes with static.

“Chell, you’re running a bit late you know…” The tonal sound combined with the voice’s context allowed Chell to only picture a friendly smirk.

She responds to the black brick with a sighing groan, “Bailey, I’m talking to my kids right now. I want to make sure they’re safe from danger.”

“Pffft! Aw Chell, relax! Both will be fine, I’m sure of it. They’re smart kids, they can handle themselves.” Bailey attempts a string of words of reassurance. “I swear, you’re just as paranoid, or more paranoid than the adults here. I feel as if I’m the only one who’s not such a worrier. Your hallucinations are just getting too close to your head nowadays is all. I mean, every time I swing by your house you give your kids some sort of little lecture before going out, especi-”

Chell switches off her radio and finishes her daily lecture with her children, before flying out the door, hurrying to the station.

Adam turns to Caroline, asking, “So...what did mom pack?”

Caroline tosses her meal into the kitchen trashcan, remarking in vile unamusement, “Look for yourself.”

Adam sets the bag on the ground and proceeds to open it with one hand, which quickly flings itself to his mouth as he restrains himself from upchucking, and is followed with him kicking the bag across the floor. “Never again…”

The two head outside, traversing the tattered city landscape. They stumble upon other children, and the occasional animals as they curiously explore and come up with their own fantasy adventures. This time, however, ideas for passing time are waning.

“O-o-o-oh! So maybe this time you can be the dragon and I can be the pr-”

“I’ve always played the role of the dragon you moron.” Caroline’s dissatisfaction with Adam’s idea is followed by lulling dull eyes, tired of suggestions.

Adam registers a new idea. “So then...we could play cowboy. Y’know, like the one on that old movie I always watch.”

“No.”

His mind quickly picks something else. “How about that game. I think it’s called duck-and-goose or something.”

“It’s duck-duck-goose and no. Can you even count? We don’t have enough people to play that game.” Corrects Caroline.

Cheeks flushed with red humiliation and frustration, he chides, “Okay, yeah. Duck-and-goose is for babies anyways. I mean, we’re not babies, right?”

Caroline’s lips transform into a giddy sly smile. “Well, if we’re not babies, then that means we could go into that haunted cave I’ve always triple-dog-dared you that one time.”

He lights up, eyes stunned and mouth flipped into a deep, upside down crescent. “Wait, y-you mean the-the one that’s supposed to have the ghost of John Freeman?” His stomach feels like it dug itself deep into his feet, uneasy with Caroline’s smiling and chuckles.

She pushes him playfully, causing him to falter with his upper body’s uneven balance, and drop to the floor. “Come on, John Freeman isn’t even real. He’s just some made up person that all the street kids like to laugh about.”

“Yeah but even street kids are nothing to joke about. Y-y-you’ve heard of the Ratchet kids, right?” Nervously, Adam felt like high tailing and ditching Caroline. “Th-th-their gang is big a-and they always have a huge, nasty dog with them!”

Caroline dashes forward. “I’m leaving you!”

“W-wha?!”” Sure, Adam wanted to ditch her, but not the other way around! “NO DON’T LEAVE ME I’M TOO AFRAID TO BE LEFT ALONE!”

“Then do my triple-dog-dare you moron!” Caroline’s voice echoed through the alleyways as she fades further and further away from him.

Uncomfortable with the sudden loneliness, he rushes after her. “STILL MEANS DON’T LEAVE ME!”

Among the wild chasing, and the weaving in and out of the city, climbing over fences, garbage cans, dodging stray hounds and cats, and passing people, an hour into the rush is where Adam’s panicking over losing sight of his sister hits as he breaks into the open clearing of field that surrounds the urban buildings on all sides, excluding the stray housings scattered into the climbing wall of the volcano, and the orphanage, which he currently finds suspicion in its activity.

The squawking and mumbling of several children in harshly ruined wear catches his worried eyes. The kids all wear dirty green bandanas on their sleeves, making the indication clear, as they clamber over the Cottage’s fence, and pressing the glass windowpane upwards to gain access to the insides.

He merely glances over this odd feat, and almost continues his run to call out Caroline. “Carol-gak!” Instead, he’s yanked by the loose knotted sleeve of his shirt to a shielding corner of a building. Adam’s heart falls to the floor with relief as he sees Caroline’s furrowing eyebrows and her hands indicating that he should shut up. “Oh, hey-”

“SHSSSSSH!” She hisses.

“What?”

Caroline quietly points at the gang of children raiding the orphanage, releasing a rhetorical question. “You do know that those are the Ratchet gang?”

“Yeah. So, let’s get moving, and pretend we never stumbled upon--” Adam is captured by Caroline’s forceful grip upon his failing escape, this time by the shirt collar.

Caroline presses his head to forcefully focus him on the distant party ahead.

“Caroline! I know! Thoseth are sthe bloody Ratchet kidsth!” Whines Adam, his words temporarily trapped in an accent while his cheeks are squished by Caroline’s palms.

“You know...if you stop them from doing whatever it is they’re doing, I’ll let you go from that triple-dog-dare.” Caroline’s smirking makes Adam feel queasy, amused with providing him with two evils.

Face flushed pale, he fiddles with a tampered corner of his plaid shirt as he heads towards the Ratchet Gang, attempting to mellow some of his stress. He slinks behind the fence, and chirps, “Oh hey, hi-uh…”

They ignore him.

“Y-y’know, wh-whatever it is you’re all d-doing, uhm…”

His stuttering reels in a teenage-looking gang member, who walks over to the white picket fence and leans, eyes locking onto Adam, pasty dirt tinting their skin two shades darker than their intended tone. The teen’s mouth moves in a chewing motion, and he lets out a wad of spit. “What?”

Adam is speechless, his heart thumping in horrendous loud tremors. Quickly, his legs launch him to spin away from the teen and yelp, “Okaynicetoknowyoubutgoodbye!” Yet, an aggressive tug on his shirt’s back restrains him from leaving. It doesn’t take long for Adam to notice himself floating two feet off the ground.

**Kids At Play 3-2**

“Haha, well-uh...y-you should probably put me down. Right where you found me?” The timid squeaking from Adam and dripping sweat of hidden fear initiated the teen to haul Adam over the fence, creating tears within the shirt’s sleeve.

“Look at what the fortunate city folks brought in for us to play!” Hollers the teenage boy.

_Haha, oh would you look at this Adam, you’re going to die. Very fast. Aaaaand today._

Adam wishes he’d chose to go into that cave instead.

“Some scrawny twerp decided to waltz into our business,” The teen pokes Adam. “It’s funny how you’re just some twig, I thought the adults keep you pets well fed.” He turns to the other members. “Tea lookit this loser!”

A prepubescent girl flicks Adam on the nose and chuckles, “Aww give the twerp some time. He’s only six I’m guessing.” She hears a crash inside the Cottage. “Didya get that old lady’s rabbit yet Bear?

“Hell yeah!” Triumphantly cries a small five year old who clamps his hands around the feeble ears of the mammal as he pops out of an open cottage window. The long eared creature kicks and struggles, and lets loose a howling scream. Bear jumps, his hands impulsively freeing the rabbit. The child’s heart is racing from the shock, and the teen barks at them. “S-s-sorry!” Bear chases after the speeding rabbit, and stumbles upon coming in contact with Caroline’s foot poking out from hiding.

Caroline smirks, and goes after the domestic animal.

“Hey! You all better get that rabbit!” Demands the teen. He glares at Adam, and releases him; Adam feels himself planting into the ground face first.

_Holy--okay, mom said that the “s” word is bad, so um, poop!_

Adam teeters back onto his feet, shielding his nose, his face wielded into a look of panic. “Please tell me I’m not bleeding…” He removes his shield of hand.

_Okay, good. No blood anywhere._

What a relief. But wait, where’s Caroline? Adam takes a random guess on where to go, his sliver of hope telling him that perhaps if he looks for the rabbit, he’d find his sister. After all, she did go chasing after them.

_Please tell me that she’s somewhere here!_

The pathways he chooses to take cause his head to spin, everything becomes nothing but a fumbling mess of mental dizziness inside his mind. Oh why did he choose this route? What if Adam is completely wrong? C’mon, maybe this is correct? Either way, it’s not like the young boy knows the right directions. All he knows is everyone darted straight into the heart of the city, and is now racing through the veins of this secluded community. “CAROLINE!” He hollers loudly among the alleys. Panting, he rests his hand upon his right leg, and leans against a shoddy brick wall, his heart racing and head hurting. “Just...how...hard is it to find--” He catches a flurry of black and white fur and yellow clothing. Right after watching them dash away, the angry screeches and grumbling anger of dulled clothing and smothered faces follow. Pressing away from the wall, Adam follows.

**Kids At Play 3-3**

“STOP YOU THIEVES!” Adam shouted his loudest at the grimey gang. It didn’t matter, nor bother the Ratchet kids. If anything, getting within arms reach of any of them would cause Adam to be only tossed into a trashcan and maybe be beaten if he was lucky. Hopefully that fate doesn’t fall upon his sister either.

Adam needed to find some way to intervene. This attempt at trailing after everyone wasn’t working, and the rabbit is nowhere close to being captured. Quickly, he darts away and enters an alternate alleyway.

_Please oh PLEASE lead to that rabbit!_

“ADAM! Give me your flannel!”

Eyes widening, it’s a surprise to reunite with his sister during this twisting and turning chase. He immediately obliges with her request and rips his flannel off of himself, not completely sure on what she plans to do despite the trust he invests in her. Whatever it is she’s planning, all he knows is that it’s going to get a bit cold without that flannel of his.

_She better give me back my flannel!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically, this is the 3rd chapter since the first is listed as a prologue (but I don't know how to change the numbering to have it be recognized as a prologue), so this is where the pacing of posting chapters is going to slow down. I'll get the next chapter up later this week.

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction can also be found on tumblr! (http://p2-wearerabbits.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Also, this is the first time I've ever joined a fanfiction-oriented site, and this is probably my first major fanfiction I'm working on whenever I can; I rarely write much fanfiction, so hopefully this one is enjoyable to read :)
> 
> Lastly, I'll be reposting the next several chapters here. There may be slight differences in how things are formatted between the AO3 version and the Tumblr version, but much of the story will stay the same. Any chapters posted after chapter 3 may feel a bit odd when reading due to the hiatus gap for this fanfiction when it was first on Tumblr (I'm now getting back to writing it again), and I was writing other stories which may have affected my writing style slightly. As for spacing between paragraphs, let me know if I need to add extra space, the Rich Text Format for every site always throws me off^^"


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